Egypt Charges Three More Libyans in Alleged Assassination Plot

December 15, 1985

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ The government has charged three Libyans with espionage and issued warrants for their arrests in the alleged plot to kill Libyan exiles in Egypt, the official Middle East News Agency said Saturday.

Egypt plans to try the three in absentia along with four other Libyans captured after the foiled attack on two exiles last month, the agency said.

Abdel-Mawgood el-Barbary, the state security prosecutor, has demanded the death penalty for the four in custody. They previously were charged with spying, criminal conspiracy, attempted murder, illegal possession of weapons and illegal entry into Egypt.

The prosecution is asking for life imprisonment for the three Libyan officers at large and believed back in Libya, el-Barbary said.

A state security court in Alexandria will try the case at an unspecified date, the Middle East News Agency said.

Interior Minister Ahmed Rushdy, in diclosing the Nov. 6 plot, said last week it was directed against Abdel-Hamid el-Bakoush, a former Libyan prime minister, and Mohammed el-Mokaryef, once a Cabinet-level official in Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy’s government.

Rushdy said Khadafy’s regime promised to divide the equivalent of $22.5 million among a four-man assassination squad and another Libyan who actually was working with Egyptian security.

The government recorded the arrest of the four men outside a farm in Alexandria and showed it on state-run television.

The news agency said the three men at large are Abdel-Salaam el-Zadma, Abdallah el-Sinoussy el-Mokerhy and Younis Belkassem. The four Libyans in Egyptian custody are Sakr Abdallah Meidun, Farahat Mohamed Seddiq, Mehrez Mohamed Omar and Youssef Negm el-Orfi.